


Home, Again

by boho_writer



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, Episode: The Abominable Bride, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, John is Not Amused, POV Sherlock Holmes, Reichenbach-Related, Sherlock Holmes & John Watson Friendship, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-12 01:18:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5648509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boho_writer/pseuds/boho_writer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Sherlock couldn't convince John at Bart's, if he couldn't say goodbye and stay in control then...what could be expected of him at the tarmac? How could he be expected to sell the lie, knowing he would never see John Watson again? Was it really a wonder to anyone he'd not been able to face that moment clear-headed? (Tag for "The Abominable Bride"--be warned that here there be spoilers...)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home, Again

After Sherlock ripped up the list and stumbled off the plane, everything seemed to speed up. Maybe it was the drugs, but probably not. Sherlock wasn't an addict, but he was a user and was familiar with the soporific effects of the combination he'd taken. The Moriarty enigma had bought him some time, where everyone’s focus was directed elsewhere. But apparently now it was clear to the others that Sherlock could not have taken the drugs in the five minutes it took for his plane to return, or the four minutes he spent in exile, or the three minutes he said goodbye to John, or the two minutes he stood by the plane in stoic silence with Mycroft. So that could only mean—

"You were high on the tarmac, when you said goodbye to me."

This from John, once he and Sherlock and Mary were all packed into the backseat of Mycroft's car, Sherlock in the middle like a kid brother, the youngest child, the one who could not be trusted without security flanking him from all sides, and hasn't that been his role for some thirty-odd years anyway?

Sherlock blinked slowly because this feeling of self-catching-up-with-reality was never pleasant. It made him want another hit (which did _not_ make him an addict) and he remembered that before he had left the car he'd slipped what remained of his stash between the seat cushions where John currently sat, which meant it would be possible to procure. Perhaps if he tried to hug John he could reach behind…but the look on John’s face suggested physical contact would not be welcome at the moment.

Sherlock turned instead to Mary, deflecting. "You hacked my phone," he said, matter-of-fact, voice betraying no emotion to indicate he was mostly impressed but slightly wary, which was the best way to describe their friendship. 

"Hey, hey," John snapped his fingers impatiently under Sherlock's nose. "We'll talk about that later. Right now I want to know why you chose to shoot up at the beginning of a mission for MI6."

"Because I wasn't meant to return from it," Sherlock answered before he could stop himself.

John's intake of breath was impossible not to hear. Mary didn't react, meaning she, unsurprisingly, knew the truth all along.

In the front seat, Mycroft leaned towards his driver and spoke quietly; a moment later, the privacy shield was raised. John's voice was low regardless. "So was that...a suicide attempt, then?"

Sherlock scoffed. "You saw the list, John. Knowing my history, do you really think that would be enough to kill me?"

"But something was going to?"

"Something. Someone. I told you Mycroft estimated six months."

"And," John was at the other end of the rage spectrum, yelling now, " _you_ made it sound as though you'd be back!"

Sherlock flinched, cutting his eyes to his shoes. Mary sat silently; Sherlock wondered whose side she was on, but didn't dare to ask.

"Just once," John hissed through his teeth. "Just  _once_  I'd appreciate knowing the truth when you go off to die. Always leaving me in the bloody dark." John turned his head away to look out the window. "And my last memory of you would be of you lying to me." An ominous pause. "No, my  _second_  last memory, that is. The first one's of you lying to me before you threw yourself off a sodding building!"

With that, John fell into a furious silence. Sherlock leaned his head back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

What John didn't know, but Sherlock couldn't forget, was how their first last meeting didn't go as planned. He had to lie to John before he jumped, get him to believe Sherlock to be a fraud. It would guarantee John's safety but also spare him any pain. At least that's what Sherlock thought. So the best way that conversation could have gone would have been for Sherlock to be cold and detached towards John. A true sociopath. 

He'd run through the possible conversation in his head beforehand. "I researched you," he'd practiced, his tone remote and unaffected. A condescending, "No one could be that clever." In that context, it made John sound like a pawn, a fool. And Sherlock knew John had his pride: he wouldn't mourn for someone who manipulated him. He would be furious, believe Sherlock to be a fake, and would be glad he was gone. It was the perfect plan.

Then the cab had pulled up to Bart's, John had gotten out, the call was placed, and Sherlock...Sherlock had  _cried_. Everything he'd planned, all the words he'd scripted in his head, they came across the divide full of tears and remorse, broken and scared. Because he was. Even though Sherlock wasn't really going to die (hopefully), even though someday he could come home (maybe), he still had to leave. And to do that, he had to lie to John. And John had heard his friend’s heartbreak and made it all worse, because he promised to help and vehemently refused to believe the lie.

And Sherlock had wept, because for once he had a friend even he couldn't get rid of. When he was alone for those two years, it was the memory of their goodbye which his mind most often replayed. Each time regret and loneliness threatened to overwhelm him. It was as though he were on the roof again, over and over every time.

 _Emotions._ As much as Sherlock wanted to believe he was detached, above it all, he was just like the rest. If he couldn't convince John at Bart's, if he couldn't say goodbye and stay in control then...what could be expected of him at the tarmac? Because John did believe the lie then. He believed Sherlock was going abroad for an MI6 mission, but he would come back eventually. In that context, John would be satisfied with a simple, "see you around."

But Sherlock...Sherlock knew the truth.

How could he be expected to sell the lie, knowing he would never see John Watson again? Or Mary? Knowing he would never see John and Mary's daughter born—and  _oh_ , it had been both wonderful and horrible to know they'd had a scan and it was a girl, because Sherlock could visualize their complete family now (knowing what he did about genetics and enough of John's family, he could piece together what the baby would look like). But then it was all the worse because it made it more  _real_  now and he loved her the same as he did Mary, because John loved her and John was his best friend. The Watsons were his friends.

So was it really a wonder to anyone he'd not been able to face that moment clear-headed?

Even with his eyes closed Sherlock could tell the car was slowing down: there was heavy traffic in the city, caused, no doubt, by the televised incident earlier. Sherlock was unsure if they were headed back to Baker Street, the Met, a prison cell, or Mycroft's. Any possibility was fine by him, as it meant Not Eastern Europe. 

 _He wasn't going to die._  His mind was clearing a bit, and that was the main focus overriding all others. Yes, Mycroft was angry, John was furious, something or someone was sending him a message, it was all still very dangerous...but he wasn't going to die.

No.  No, _wait._

What he meant was he wasn't going to die  _alone_.

That's why he'd been reading John's blog on the plane. John could say what he wanted about his last memory of Sherlock, but Sherlock was determined not to spoil his with an offhand goodbye. The drugs were step one to ensure it. Nothing felt completely real, so he could distance himself from the memory. Then he went to the blog, back to the beginning, where it all started. Before he'd heard the name Moriarty, before Mary or The Woman had come along, before Mrs. Hudson made tea each morning (while promising it was "only this once"), before the skull lived on the mantle as decoration instead of a sounding board. Before he'd faked his death to save them all. And before he'd come home only to find it was so very different than he'd left it.

Sherlock had gone back to the moment John Watson offered him his phone.

 _“Here, use mine.”_ And the game was on.

Because if Sherlock had to leave for good—if he knew he would die somewhere far from home, alone—he wanted his last memory of his best friend to be the first one. He'd taken the piss out of John's blog on a regular basis, but god, he was thankful for it at the end. Now he could relive the moment when life got so much better, even if he knew the payoff of having friends was that sometimes he hurt them and hurt himself in the process. And sometimes he didn't know how to handle that pain; he'd shut it all out before because it was so much easier. It became the default setting. Even at the end, on the tarmac, with John and Mary.

But no, Sherlock corrected himself, that wasn't the end. Not yet, anyway.

He felt a light touch on his shoulder and his eyes fluttered open. "We're home," Mary said gently.

Sherlock blinked rapidly, craning his head to see the door to 221B Baker Street.

 _Home._ He never thought he’d see it again, and now he longed for it.

John's door faced the street: he was forced to wait as Mary opened the curbside door so they could slide out. Before moving, Sherlock chanced a look his way.

The older man’s face held his solider-mask firmly in place. Unreadable, all emotion contained. They were so alike, Sherlock thought. More than John realized. And he knew John would roll his eyes at an apology, say he was lying, so Sherlock did the only thing he could think of to break down John’s walls.

"John," he said softly. The solider-mask sent a glare at Sherlock, who glanced at the seat behind him.

"In the cushion," he murmured.

John stared at him for just a moment before slowly reaching behind himself, between the seat. Sherlock watched his face change as he closed his hand around what he found.

The mask dropped. John's eyes met Sherlock's: the two men (friends, partners) seeing each other for the first time since Christmas, or maybe even before then. Maybe first the first time since an invalid army doctor handed a sociopath detective his second-hand phone.

"No more of this," John whispered thickly.

Sherlock understood. No more drugs, no more lists, no more lying, no more dying. He couldn't swear to it, of course. But there in the back of the car, with John blocking the exit to the road and Mary waiting by the door, and the baby who would have blonde hair and blue eyes growing strong inside her, and Mycroft working to readmit his baby brother to the civil world, and Moriarty dead but somehow back, and Emilia Ricoletti safe in the ground, he could almost believe anything could be possible.

So Sherlock nodded, said "no more," and committed the moment to his memory to retrieve if ever he was alone again. Because he was about to step out of his brother’s car and come home, again, to people who loved him. If anything in the world was worth memorizing, it was that feeling, no matter what pain might follow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feedback, as always, is appreciated so much.


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